Beyond Redemption
by B'Danya
Summary: After a mutant attacks Adam and leaves him in a coma, Emma must search for answers
1. The Mysterious Woman

**Beyond Redemption**

By: B'Danya

Disclaimer: Quite obviously, I do not own Mutant X. If I did I would a) have more money, my own apartment, yada, yada, yada, and b) not have to write this fanfiction as I could have made it into an episode… or extra season… hmmm… Anyways, this is my first Mutant X fic; please review (constructive criticism would be appreciated!)

**Chapter One – The Mysterious Woman**

Something had been bothering Emma all week. She couldn't quite put her finger on it but Adam had seemed distant somehow. Not his usual distance – he had always held back with divulging his feelings – but somehow detached from the world around him. Oh, she knew he had many secrets, but other than that she knew only what he told her. As a psionic, though, she found it refreshing. Most people's emotions were broadcast without them ever realizing it so having a person she wasn't painfully aware of whenever he was around was a godsend.

Emma DeLauro was the resident psionic of Mutant X, a group put together by Adam Kane to protect New Mutants from the GSA. She had three other partners in crime: Shalimar Fox, a feline feral; Brennan Mulwray, an elemental who could throw bolts of electricity; and Jesse Kilmartin, a molecular who could alter his body's mass. As for Emma herself, she was a telempath: she could sense other's emotions and project her own to others.

Operating under the radar of legitimate law enforcement agencies, they lived away from the rest of the world. Sanctuary was a nice place, but they had to get out and party once in a while. _'Well, most of us, anyway,'_ Emma reminded herself. Adam never completely let his guard down, particularly around her. For some reason he raised his guard whenever he was near a psionic. She knew he had secrets, but what did he need to hide so badly that he practically lived expecting someone to hack into his brain?

The group made it a point of going to clubs once in a while to keep in touch with so-called 'normal' society. Most the time she enjoyed these outings, but today was different. She had been in the ladies room for half an hour nursing the mother of all migraines. She had been getting them whenever she was near Adam in the last week; it was like he was _trying_ to keep her out.

"Emma, are you okay?" Shalimar called from outside the stall door. "You've been gone a long time, we're worried."

Rubbing her temples and opening the door, she managed to throw a weak smile at the feral. "I'm fine Shalimar. Just another one of my headaches, she replied.

Shalimar sighed. "You've been getting a lot of them recently. Have you told Adam?" Emma shook her head. "You should tell him. He might be able to help," she suggested, throwing a protective arm around the psionic's waist. They both knew that the migraines were an unfortunate side effect of Emma's telempathic abilities.

"He's got a lot on his mind right know," Emma explained. Shalimar suspected that there was more to it than Emma let on, but decided not to pry. There was a peculiar unspoken arrangement between the two, and she was content to let the two of them deal with their problems.

"I know, it's one of those things," Shalimar noted with a shake of the head. They had a long talk a while back about things that were beyond explanation. She smiled down at the younger woman. "Let's round up the boys and call it a night," she suggested. Emma nodded and rested her aching head against Shalimar's shoulder as they headed off to find the others.

Meanwhile, Brennan, Jesse, and Adam were waiting for the two female members of their team. "Emma's been gone a long time, Adam. Is everything okay with her?" Brennan asked.

"She hasn't mentioned anything to me, but it's almost like she's been avoiding me," Adam replied. He had noticed that whenever Emma distanced herself from the group she was usually having troubles controlling aspects of her abilities; keeping that in mind, he decided to ask her tomorrow if she was having problems.

They fell into a pensive silence, until Jesse nudged Brennan and pointed. "Check _her_ out," he declared. Brennan looked and noticed a very attractive redhead headed directly towards them. Adam took no notice, lost in his own thoughts. With a grin he challenged, "I bet you ten dollars she wants to talk to me."

Brennan arrogantly raised an eyebrow. "I'll take that bet," he replied smoothly. "She obviously wants a man of worldly experience, not a spoiled kid," he taunted lightly.

The woman stopped directly in front of the three men. "Hello, Adam," she said coolly. Adam snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of the silky voice. "It has been far too long," she added, extending her hand. Shocked, he extended his, which she promptly took into her own and staring him in the eyes.

Jesse and Brennan watched first with confusion, and then with shock, as they watched the exchange. Before either of them had a chance to react, Adam's eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed, unconscious, to the floor. As they rushed to help Adam, the mysterious redhead had vanished into the crowd. "Brennan, stay with him!" Jesse shouted as he rushed into the crowd to find the woman. As hard as he looked, he couldn't find her in the crowd. He ran out the main doors, hoping she had run directly out of the club, but he didn't see any trace of her. "Damn!" he yelled, frustrated at her escape. There was nothing he could do now but go back to where he left Brennan to tend to Adam.

As Shalimar and Emma made their way through the crowd towards where Shalimar had left everyone, Emma gasped in pain and sagged heavily against her friend's shoulder. Stopping, she supported Emma's weight. "What's wrong?"

Her head swimming in pain, she managed to groan "Adam… Something's wrong…" She managed take a few deep breaths and continued, "He's hurt, really bad." Without another word, they hurried towards where a large crowd was gathering.

Pushing through, they found Brennan kneeling next to Adam. Brennan's coat was under Adam's head and was arguing with a security guard. "No, he didn't take anything! One minute he was fine, and the next he just collapsed. This has happened before," Brennan growled.

Every member of Mutant X knew that it would cause major problems if Adam's identity was discovered. They were all prepared to ensure that wouldn't happen. Emma could tell the guard wasn't buying the story, and decided to take matters into her own hands. "Sir, he's diabetic. It's probably just low blood sugar," she explained with a disarming smile and a slight telepathic nudge, encouraging him to trust her. _'I just hope no one gives it away,'_ she noted mentally.

After a tense moment, the security guard nodded. "Just make sure he gets home safe," he admonished her. She nodded, and he turned to the crowd and yelled "Back off people, this isn't a freak show! Nothing to see here!" With those words, the crowd slowly dispersed.

Brennan carefully picked up Adam and carried him to the car. They caught Jesse on his way back into the club. After getting everyone seated, Brennan peeled out of the parking lot, in a rush to get Adam back to Sanctuary. Shalimar and Jesse quickly admonished him for it: they didn't know if Adam was in any condition to be jostled.

They drove for what felt like an eternity without a word. Brennan was the first to break the silence. "Jesus, she only took his hand for a second! What the hell did she do to him?" he shouted.

"He knew her, Brennan. That was the weird thing… he didn't seem to believe what he was seeing," Jesse noted. "He looked like he had seen a ghost." For the tenth time, he checked Adam's pulse. It was weak, but racing.

"Would someone care to explain what the hell happened?" Shalimar growled, her eyes flashing bright yellow in the dark. She loved Adam like a father; her feral instincts were always triggered when he was in danger. _'No one harms my pack mates and gets away with it!'_ she thought to herself after Jesse explained what had happened.

Emma sat in the passenger seat, cringing from the emotions being thrown around the car. "Shut up, all of you!" she snapped as her own emotional control disappeared. This was a psionic migraine of new heights and she began to sob in pain.

Everyone was shocked at Emma's tears, but soon realized the problem: they had all been focusing so hard on their own emotions that they forgot she could feel everyone's, not just her own. "Sorry Em," Shalimar said softly, forcibly controlling her feral side. "There's some Advil in the glove compartment for your headache," she added.

"Thanks," she replied, quickly taking two. Breathing deeply, she ignored the migraine and stretched out towards Adam. "He's still there, but I can't reach him. It's almost like… like… I can't describe it!" she groaned, angry at herself for not being able to explain what she felt.

"Emma, you've got to try harder. Adam's life might depend on it," Brennan said, an edge of fear in his voice.

"Don't you think I know that?" she snapped. "I've never felt anything like it," she said, a little calmer. She paused, unsure of how to convey the feeling to her team-mates. "I mean, Adam's hard to read on a good day. This is different. It's like he's trapped… I can see him, but it's like… like a peep hole," she told them. "I can see him, but not his surroundings. He's scared and hurt… but I can't tell you much more than that," she finished, drawing her mind away from Adam's and slumping exhaustedly into her seat.

Even though Brennan had wanted to go faster, they still made it back to Sanctuary in record time. Jesse and Brennan carefully carried Adam into the medical bay and laid him down on the bed, while Shalimar and an exhausted Emma followed. Jesse ran scans of Adam, and shook his head. "This makes no sense! There's nothing physically wrong with him," he sighed. "But look at the brain wave patterns, they're completely abnormal."

Emma looked up at the readings for a moment, then at him with no surprise on her face. "He was probably attacked by a psionic." They all eyed her with disbelief, wondering how she came up with that idea. "No one but a psionic could have caused the damage I saw in there. Take a close look at the scans: his brain function is that of a coma patient," she explained. Adam had once made her study brain wave scans, telling her it would be important sometime. "It would be a simple matter to induce one, but whoever is doing this would be stuck in a trance state to maintain it," she guessed.

"Can you find out who did it?" Jesse asked "Like tracing a hacker?"

Emma rubbed her temples. "It's really different than that, but I'll try…" she answered. She was tired, but this was important. She brushed Adam's mind with her own, and began looking for the minute traces of telepathic contact. _'There, right at the back of his mind… What is that?'_ she asked herself. Stretching her abilities to their limits, she tried to identify it. Just before she could, she was dragged back into her body. She looked around, confused. For some inexplicable reason, she was now in a chair, with her friends surrounding her. "What happened?" she asked, coming slowly to her senses.

"Here," Brennan said, sounding worried. Looking down at his hand, she saw a tissue. At her questioning look he added, "For your nose."

She touched her hand to her nose and noticed it was bleeding. "Thanks," she said, taking it and pinching her nose with it to stop the bleeding. "How long was I gone?" she asked them.

"Two hours," Jesse replied. "It was really creepy, Emma. You opened your eyes and they were darting around in your head, then you were mumbling incoherently. What the hell were you doing in his head for two hours?"

Emma looked at them in shock. "It felt like only a couple of minutes," she explained. Her trance states usually left her a bit shaky, but this one made her want to collapse. "There's something there, I just can't reach it!" she lamented.

"Get some sleep, Emma," Shalimar said reassuringly, pressing a cold glass of water into her hand. "It'll help. I'll stay up with Adam, and I'll let you know if there's any change," she told everyone.

"If you get tired I'll relieve you," Jesse told her. "Come on Emma, let's get you to bed," he told her. She nodded and stood up on shaky legs. Another awkward silence fell upon the group as three of them headed to bed and Shalimar pulled a chair up next to her mentor and settled in for a long night.


	2. Skeletons in the Closet

**Chapter Two: Skeletons in the Closet**

Disclaimer: Still don't own Mutant X, but I do claim rights to giving Adam a hobby in this story. Poor guy needed something other than genetics to occupy him. I also don't own the verse in here (you'll know it when you see it): it's a verse from the song "Wash it all Away" by Evanescence.

Warning: A/M relationship, just mildly PG (there's too much tension between the two for them to have just been co-workers ;-))

If Adam Kane had taught the members of Mutant X one valuable lesson, it was to hope for the best but to expect the worst. When they woke in the morning (with the exception of Shalimar, who had stayed up with Adam all night) they discovered neither extreme. In fact, there had been very little change at all. When they had all gathered, Shalimar gave them the brief update. "The brain waves changed at about two hours ago… it looks like there is more activity, but I don't know what it means. This isn't really my thing," she apologized.

"It's amazing: we need Adam's technical expertise to find out what's wrong with him," Brennan pointed out wryly, stifling a yawn behind his hand. "Emma how's your head?" he questioned.

She nodded. "It's much better. I probably just strained myself to hard," she explained. "Nothing a good sleep couldn't cure," she added brightly.

Jesse smiled back. "At least that's good news. Look, I'm starving. I'm going to go get some breakfast. I'll be back in a bit," he told them.

Brennan perked up at the idea of food. "That sounds like a good idea, I'll come with you," he declared.

"Nice job with the concealer. I can hardly tell it's there," Shalimar told Emma once the boys were out of earshot. She had heard Emma pacing the hallways last night. "Did you sleep at all?" the blonde asked.

Emma sighed. "Not very well, but yeah. And my head _does_ feel better," she assured the feral. "Shalimar, can I ask you some questions about Adam? You've known him the longest," she explained.

"Sure, Emma. If you think it will help," she said seriously.

"How much did Adam tell you about his time at Genomex?" she started.

"Not a lot. He worked there for about twenty years, starting as Dr. Breedlove's assistant and he moved up from there," Shalimar explained. "He said the research he was doing was supposed to help cure genetic problems: MS, neurological disorders, stuff like that. He told me he didn't know how the research was being applied until near the end of his time there."

Emma furrowed her brow. "Didn't it ever strike you as odd that it took someone as smart as Adam almost twenty years to figure out what his research was doing? He can usually tell when someone isn't telling the truth," she offered. She had often wondered if Adam had some natural psychic tendencies; he always seemed to know when something was wrong.

Shalimar scowled at her. "Are you trying to imply something?" she asked in a challenging tone.

Emma sighed, noting the feral's sudden behavioural change. "I'm just wondering why he always gets so evasive when I ask him about it. And last night I saw something in his mind, like a memory… or a nightmare…" Emma paused and shivered, remembering the brief image she had received. "I'm sure it was a Genomex lab, but there were shelves full of jars. In each jar there was something that resembled a fetus, but they were somehow… changed. Like they were early attempts at creating ferals; some had scaly skin, others seemed to have fur. The odd thing was that I didn't notice any shock, horror, nothing! It didn't seem like him at all,"

Shalimar looked down at Adam, then back at Emma. "Are you sure of what you saw? You did say you had overextended yourself," she offered helpfully. "I'm sure Adam would have told me if he had seen something like that. Or maybe it was just something his mind put together on its own, like imagining the worst possible thing that could happen at work."

Emma nodded carefully, biting her bottom lip. "Did he ever say anything to you about his old love interests?" she asked, blushing at having to ask.

Shalimar snorted. "I have wondered that myself, sometimes. Do you think that the woman who did this is an old love interest?" she asked quickly.

"Right now I have no clue. I'm going to try to get through to him telepathically again. Maybe his brain function means he's aware in there," Emma suggested hopefully.

Shalimar smiled. "Right now, anything would be better than sitting around doing nothing." She paused and looked into Emma's dark eyes and added softly, "I don't need to tell you how helpless I feel right now… and how terrifying it is for me to be helpless."

Emma rubbed Shalimar's shoulder. "Everything will be fine, Shal, we've all made it through worse," she assured her blonde friend. Without another world, she reached out to connect with Adam. Touching his mind today felt like being filled with ice and she mentally cringed, unbearably chilled from the contact. There was more function, definitely. It wasn't the blackness of yesterday; it was more like vivid torture. She 'saw' Adam being forced to watch something, something he didn't want to see. He struggled against it, but couldn't seem to get away.

"_Adam, can you hear me?"_ she prodded his mind, trying to get him to recognize her presence. She felt a strong barrier pushing its way up and a chilling androgynous voice screamed, _"GET OUT! You don't belong here!" _

Just before the barrier blocked her from Adam completely, she thought she heard Adam howl, _"Mason, I'm sorry!"_

She took a long gulp of air as she exited Adam's mind. She looked over where she had left Shalimar, only to notice that Jesse and Brennan had returned. Weary from trying to fight Adam's mind she groaned, "How long?"

"Only ten minutes this time," Shalimar replied. "Still too long if you ask me," she added protectively. She didn't want to say it, but sometimes Emma scared her. The other members of Mutant X had powers you could see and feel, but the psionics abilities were different; no one could be sure of what was going on inside Emma's head.

Emma blinked a couple times, looking again at Jesse and Brennan, knowing it took them longer than that to eat. "You screamed, Emma. We heard you halfway across Sanctuary. What the hell is going on?" Brennan asked in a no-nonsense manner.

Emma looked at the monitor displaying the brain wave scans again, finally noticing a pattern she could recognize. "Memory…" she murmured, barely loud enough for even Shalimar's sensitive ears. "Someone is forcing Adam to relive his memories…" she stated slowly, but with certainty.

"I think I lost you there, Emma," Jesse told her, "because that would make no sense at all. Why would anyone do that to Adam?"

Emma shook her head in disbelief. "We know next to nothing about Adam's life before Mutant X, we don't know if he was disliked by anyone," she reminded them. Suddenly it made more sense. "You said that he looked like he had seen a ghost… he didn't expect to see her again. And if it's someone from his past, that would explain why the long-term memory centers are being activated. Memories of her…" No, that didn't make sense. "What would Adam be telling Mason Eckhart he's sorry for?" she murmured, too low for even Shalimar's sensitive hearing.

Emma wheeled around to leave the room, everyone staring after her in shock. "Where are you going?" she heard Jesse call to her.

"To find some clues…" she murmured, well out of earshot of the others.

Brennan found her half an hour later, going through the contents of Adam's quarters. "You know we're not supposed to be in here," he admonished from the doorway, hoping to startle her.

"And a former thief is on such high moral ground when it comes to breaking and entering," she replied without as much as a turn of the head. "Besides, I don't think Adam will mind if it helps us pull him out of it," she added. Sighing, she sat on the narrow bed and looked around the sparse room.

"So, he's not a material man," Brennan noticed. "Going top to bottom?" he asked. She was right that he had committed the same crime, but on perfect strangers. He knew how to be fast and thorough.

"Actually, left to right," she replied. "Brennan, it's not just the lack of things, it is the lack of… personality that gives me the creeps. I mean, he lives here, doesn't he? I don't know how anyone can function like this!" she moaned. "He's a scientist, he writes _everything_ down. I've seen him write down how many cups of coffee he's drank that day on data sheets as a margin for error. All of those," she gestured to a large bookshelf, filled with thick books, "are handwritten journals. They date back as young as seven years old. But there's a gap here," she pointed out.

Brennan noticed that before the gap the journals were different sizes, colors, and textures; after the gap, however, they were all identical brown leather covers, all the same size. "So his tastes changed," he conceded.

Emma shook her head. "Look what separates the two sides of the time gap," she suggested. Sitting directly where she said the gap occurred was a group photo of Mutant X, everyone smiling for the invisible camera.

They had given him the silver-framed photo as a birthday gift from the whole team… it was the only one they had managed to take without some sort of silliness showing up in the pictures.

"So what? Lots of people keep pictures on shelves. Hell, I have the same picture on my bedside table. Emma, why do you find it so suspicious?" Brennan asked, getting irritated.

She sighed, knowing Brennan had not received the strangest information yet. "It's a twenty year gap that fell specifically during the time he was at Genomex. And a bunch of pages ripped out at the back of the journal just before the gap. Isn't that just a little strange for him?" she asked.

"How did he start the next journal? The first line?" Brennan asked with keen interest. He had always been curious about Adam's past and this presented an interesting time for him to find out.

Emma's eyes met his as she repeated the strange message on the first page: "It was all my fault… Now, I am forced to start again in a life I don't want. I have to put certain… things… behind me," She shook her head in disbelief. "It just didn't sound like his writing voice at all, but after that it went back to normal, with some major additions to his vocabulary and none of the people he knew from before the gap. I _know_ that there's more here, another clue."

Brennan looked at her gently. "Maybe you should get something to eat and come back with some fresh ideas," he suggested as his stomach growled.

Emma laughed. "You just don't want to miss it if I find something interesting," she scolded playfully.

Brennan couldn't resist the taunt. "Hey, how often do you get to search your boss's bedroom for the skeletons in his closet?" Something nagged in the back of Emma's mind about the phrase, but decided to think about it later.

Instead of going right back to Adam's room after brunch, they decided to meet up and have a meeting in the medical bay. "We need to pick a leader in the interim," Shalimar declared. "I mean, if we all start giving each other orders, it will turn into complete chaos. We'll be at each other's throats in no time," she continued.

"Not me," Emma said quickly." If I'm going to help Adam at all, I need to focus on him. I can't have the welfare of you guys on my mind too. It would drive me insane," she informed them.

A harsh breath shocked everyone out of their discussion. Emma looked down at Adam and noticed how dry his lips were. "He's dehydrating. We have to get fluids into him," she said.

"I'll get the IV kit," Jesse offered. As they looked at what the kit contained, Jesse looked up and asked, "Uh… has anyone ever done this before?"

Looking at each other, they realized that no one but Adam had set up an IV before. "Brennan, are you okay?" Emma asked, noticing his nervousness.

Brennan shook his head. "I don't like needles…" he told them, turning a bit grey.

Emma sighed. "I've taken blood before. This can't be too different," she assured them. "So… we have a bag of saline and a saline lock. Can someone pass me gloves, an alcohol swab, and the rubber band thing?" she asked. Shalimar quickly procured them and Emma got to work. "Wow… he has huge veins," she marvelled once the tourniquet was on. "So the needle goes in… rubber band off… hang up the bag… and insert drip thing here," she said, more to herself than anyone.

Jesse was impressed. "You did that well… how did you know where everything went?" he asked.

Emma bit her lip. "Promise not to tell him when he wakes up?" she asked warily. After everyone had nodded she replied, in the simplest terms possible, "I guessed."

Brennan looked ready to pass out. "Um… good job?" he said, unsure whether she had done it right. Shalimar grinned at the elemental's reaction to the impromptu doctoring. "Have you seen it done before?" he asked. Emma nodded reassuringly as she taped the device more securely to Adam's arm.

"Okay… back to the leader thing. How do we pick fairly?" Shalimar asked. "I mean, Adam meant for us to work as equals; we're all indispensable on missions," she added.

Jesse looked up. "I would have picked Emma, but she won't do it. Sometimes Adam just seemed to know if we were about to do something stupid. Kept us from getting hurt when he warned us against ourselves," he reminded them.

"We'll just have to warn each other," Shalimar replied. As much as her feral side itched to be in charge, her human instincts warned her of the dangers. "Well, why don't we vote? We can't vote for ourselves, and since Emma won't do it, we can use her vote as a tie-breaker," she suggested.

Brennan, Jesse and Emma quickly agreed. After a minute of thinking, they declared a name.

"Jesse," Shalimar said firmly.

"Jesse," Brennan echoed.

"Shalimar," Jesse declared

"Jesse," Emma stated calmly.

Jesse was dumbfounded. "Can I ask you guys why?" he wondered out loud. "I mean, I just didn't see that coming.

Emma was the first to reply. "You think things through better. No offence, guys," she added quickly, "but you two a bit impulsive."

Shalimar chuckled. "A bit? Me? You must be going for understatement of the year," she quipped. "Anyway, Jesse, what should we be doing?"

"Well… um… Shalimar, you stay with Adam. I seriously doubt anything could persuade you to leave his side anyway," he said with an understanding smile. "Emma, Brennan, you keep looking for… well, whatever it is you think you might find," he said cautiously. No one had told Shalimar about their snooping through Adam's room. She would probably rip their heads off when she found out. For some reason Adam had suggested to her that his privacy was as important as his well-being.

"And what will you do, fearless leader?" Brennan asked. It had hurt his pride that no one thought he could lead the team.

"Well, Sparky," he started, using a nickname he and Brennan had laughed about, "I'm going to do what I do best: search the computers. Narrow down the list of possible psionics that could be doing this to Adam. Once I have a list together, we'll meet up here and figure out what the next step is," he told them. Everyone nodded and they parted ways.

"But why would Jesse vote for Shalimar? She is a feral, which means she's not always in control of herself," Brennan pointed out to Emma. "I understand you; Jesse is calmer than I am, but Shalimar?"

'_Fragile male egos,'_ she mused to herself, knowing that his feelings about it would pass in time. "Well, there are two very logical answers. One: maybe it would hurt his pride to take orders from you, or two: he understands that Shalimar's feral side is hell-bent towards getting Adam through this. Both of Shalimar's sides see him as family," she reminded him.

Brennan made a pensive noise and conceded the point. "You know that at least two of us would have voted for you," he casually mentioned.

Emma shook her head. "I'm not ready for that. Adam's mind is chaotic right now. It's exhausting just to see if he's still aware in that mental prison of his." She stopped abruptly as her foot hit something under Adam's bed. She bent down to retrieve it and noticed it was a pencil case, stocked full of pencils, erasers, and pencil crayons. "I didn't know Adam drew," she mused. Looking under the bed, directly in the centre, were two large stacks of drawing pads.

"Probably just doodles," Brennan told her. "He's always busy doing something else. Where would he find the time?" he asked.

"Insomnia," she replied. "He rarely sleeps more than four hours a day." She gasped as she opened the book. It was a lifelike sketch of Shalimar sitting at a computer. On the next page it was re-done in color and perfect detail.

"Whoa, I take it back. These are amazing. And there's his signature, next to the date," Brennan noticed. He paused for a moment, and then grinned wildly. "He may not have journals, but we may have pictures of the people he was around during those years!" he exclaimed.

They sat back-to-back, carefully looking through the books for the missing years of Adam's life. Emma found the time frame she was looking for fairly quickly, but soon discovered one face was repeated frequently throughout the book: Mason Eckhart. He looked much younger then: more muscular frame, no glasses, neat brown hair… she also noticed several of him in just shorts, exercising, and had to stifle a laugh. He didn't seem the athletic type.

"Wow, Emma, look at this one: Adam did a portrait of his mother. It's so detailed; she looks so peaceful. Where do you think these were drawn?" Three small letters, meticulously drawn onto the corner of the page, were like a punch in the gut. Brennan blanched as soon as Emma pointed to them: R.I.P. "He sketched his mother at her funeral? That is just plain _morbid_." He declared, closing the book and setting it carefully aside.

It was always Adam's attention to detail that she admired. In fact, she had noticed a small detail on each topless drawing of Eckhart, so she had to suppress a gasp when she found a full nude. Thankfully, his arm was over his face so he was unidentifiable when Brennan turned to see what had shocked her.

"Wow, Adam was a naughty boy in his youth," he mused aloud. To Brennan, all it was a drawing of was a nude man lying in a bed looking very satisfied and sleeping it off. To Emma, however, it was a complete shock: the very same scar as the other drawings, jagged on the left side of the rib cage. It _was_ Eckhart; there could be no doubt about it. "So, were those the Genomex years?" he asked.

"They're the right years, but it's sort of… more personal drawings," Emma declared, blushing, as she flipped through the next few pages. She set this book aside, and picked up another. "These aren't just plain drawings…" Emma gasped. "These are technical drawings, drawings of lab layouts. It's from his early days at Genomex," she noted, looking at the dates. The diagrams soon became strands of DNA, color-coded in the normal way on the left page, but had distinctive color differences in what Emma realized were key base pairs. "He _drew_ his research?" she marvelled.

Brennan turned around and saw the double helixes drawn perfectly on page after page. "Of course. Any written research would be carefully monitored. If they knew he always carried drawing pads, they would think nothing of it. Brilliant," he marvelled. "We should let Jesse plug these into the computer and she what it would give us as a translation," he suggested.

"Yeah," Emma agreed. "You do that, but I need a more personal insight into Adam. I'm going to keep looking, see if there are any red-heads in here," she suggested. He would occasionally write names to go with his drawings; maybe she could find her in one of the other drawings. That and she wanted to find out if Eckhart was aware he was being drawn by Adam.

Brennan left and Emma continued to search for more information. She could never be sure in the drawings if Eckhart knew of Adam's fascination with him. She gave up after a bit, and decided to go look at the group photo again. Something about where it was, the way there had been fingerprints on the glass; Adam wouldn't have touched the glass for no reason. It wasn't like him at all. She put her fingers over the smudged prints on the glass and nearly dropped it when the backing lifted out, exposing another picture hidden behind the group photo.

She lifted out the hidden picture carefully. It showed Adam and Mason, arms around each other's shoulders, grinning like idiots. She turned the picture over and noticed a short poem written there:

Lying beside you  
Listening to you breathe  
The life that flows inside of you  
Burns inside of me  
Hold and speak to me  
Of love without a sound  
Tell me you will live through this  
And I will die for you  
Cast me not away  
Say you'll be with me  
For I know I cannot  
Bear it all alone

- All my love to my beautiful artist

He had signed his name below: it clearly read Mason Eckhart. Emma's mind reeled with this new development. _'What on earth happened between you two?'_ she wondered. Carefully, she put all but the photo and the one drawing pad back where they belonged. She quickly brought those two items back to her quarters. As she flipped through the last few pages, she knew she had found what she was looking for: the red-headed woman, with a more current-looking Eckhart glowering down at her disapprovingly. There were only two problems: Adam had chosen not to write down her name, and she was in a stasis pod. How had she gotten out of the stasis pod? It didn't matter right now; all that mattered was finding Adam, bringing him back to the waking world.

After she had hidden the items away, Emma returned to the medical bay. "Having fun, Shalimar?" she called out, noticing the remnants of at least five heavy-duty stress balls scattered around the floor.

Shalimar growled. "They aren't relieving my stress, and now I've made a mess everywhere," she explained slowly, forcing herself back into control of her feral side. "I swear, when we find who did this to him, she is going to _wish_ that I had taken pity and killed her," she fumed.

Emma sighed. "I need to ask you another question about Adam," she began. "What exactly happened between him and Eckhart? Why can't they tolerate each other, if they used to work together?"

Shalimar stared at Emma like she was crazy. "Gee, I don't know… could it be that Eckhart wants us destroyed, while Adam protects us from him?" The question was so full of sarcasm and venom that it didn't take a psionic to figure it out. "Do you think the GSA sent the woman?" she asked excitedly.

Emma shook her head. "It's not Eckhart's style. He would have made the attempt to capture Adam; Jesse and Brennan swore that she ran right after Adam collapsed," Emma explained. "Has there been any change in him?" she asked, putting her hand on his.

Before she could get an answer, her mind was pulled into whatever Hell it was that Adam was trapped in. Remembering what had happened the last two times she allowed her presence to be noticed, she had to force herself to observe.

She knew it was Genomex she was seeing by the architecture, but most of the equipment was unfamiliar to her. It seemed similar to an X-ray room, with a concrete wall, and presumably controls for the device (whatever it did) that hung pointing at the centre of the room. She placed herself in an unobtrusive corner, and watched as Adam and Eckhart walked in together, followed by… Adam? The older Adam, her Adam, came and stood next to her. "They can't see us," he told her.

"What is this place?" Emma asked. She averted her eyes as the younger versions of Adam and Eckhart began kissing playfully.

Adam looked sheepishly at Emma. "Genomex, in the year 1991. Can this…" he trailed off, gesturing at the now-groping pair, "be kept discrete?" There was a shame there that she felt, pulling under Adam's usually calm exterior.

"Stay right there, Mason. I want to show you something," Younger Adam gushed. Mason nodded and stood trying to catch his breath.

'_A more informal time'_ Emma reminded herself. _'He probably became sterner after his accident.'_

As Younger Adam moved behind the wall, and she could feel her Adam beginning to panic. "No! This can't happen again! Stop it, stop doing this to me!" he began to shout up into the air at nobody she could see.

She had never seen Adam this distraught before. "Adam, calm down! Tell what is happening!" she begged, hoping to get through to him. She realized something suddenly: she had no sense of the younger couple… couldn't sense them at all. It took her a minute to realize that they were just memories, not actual people. _'This feels like the Outer Limits or something!'_ she mused. '_Can you be physically hurt by a memory?'_ she wondered worriedly.

Unfortunately, Adam had seen this too many times and was beyond calming. She watched the Younger Adam step behind the concrete wall and activate some power sources. A low whine of machinery powering up filled the room. "Adam, are you trying to be clever? You don't need to impress me," the brown-haired Mason assured him. "What are you doing?" he asked, moving toward the control booth.

Emma watched her Adam mouth the words "Move… move… damn it Mason!" The 'damn it' came when his younger self quickly said "No! I can't show you properly if you move, love!"

Mason sighed and smiled indulgently at his excited lover, moving back to the middle of the room. "You know I can't deny you anything, sweetness. But at least tell me what you're showing me?" he pleaded playfully, pouting. _'He can pout? And he used to call Adam 'sweetness'?'_ Emma thought incredulously. No one would believe this.

Her Adam was in hysterics by this point. "Not again! No! I can't let you see this, Emma! Leave!" he screamed at her.

Emma was stunned. "But I don't know how I got here…" she tried to explain, but Adam wouldn't let her.

"You don't belong here!" he shouted at her. The humming got louder, but she barely noticed. Instead, she focused on the mind of an insanely strong psionic mind, careening towards her. As she was forced from Adam's mindscape she heard the same ambiguous voice in her head: _'I will kill him if you try it again. Stay out of things that don't concern you, childish brat!'_ Blackness surrounded Emma as her mind was ripped away from Adam's.


	3. Losing Control

Disclaimer: Still don't own Mutant X, but I do claim rights to giving Adam a hobby in this story. Poor guy needed something other than genetics to occupy him. I also don't own the verse in here (you'll know it when you see it): it's a verse from the song "Wash it all Away" by Evanescence. Hope I didn't

Warning: A/M relationship, just mildly PG for now (there's too much tension between the two for them to have just been co-workers ;-))

**Chapter 3 – Losing Control**

When Emma came to, she found herself restrained on a bed next to Adam's. Her throat was raw and her mouth tasted of blood. She tried to talk, but a strangled sound came out instead. Her head ached horribly and her vision was blurry.

"Hey guys, she's awake," she heard Shalimar called out. Emma winced, the voice too loud for her aching head. "Emma, what the hell happened?" she questioned angrily. Again Emma tried to talk, but it was no use, her throat was too parched. She shook her head, indicating she couldn't say.

"Shalimar, relax. She's strapped down now, she can't hurt anyone else," she heard Jesse say calmly from behind her. Suddenly the world spun as the bed moved into a sitting position. "Here, drink this," he said softly, putting a straw in her mouth.

She nearly choked on the water, her aching throat too sore to handle much at all. _'What does he mean, anyone else?'_ she wondered blearily. "Thank you," she whispered. Some of the bloody taste was gone from her mouth. Had she split her lip? Why was she restrained? "Adam?" she managed to ask.

"He's fine now, no thanks to you," Shalimar hissed, her eyes flashing yellow. Emma reached out to their minds and found anger, hurt, betrayal… even physical pain from Jesse. "Do you even know what you did?" the feral asked incredulously.

"Saw Adam… Shal, he's not safe!" Emma said deliriously. "The red-head, with the voice… ask Eckhart…" A wave of dizziness hit her and she couldn't help but drift off into a restless half-sleep.

"I told you not to hit her too hard, Shalimar!" Jesse admonished her. "She could have permanent damage from that concussion," he sighed.

"She was hurting Adam, she attacked us, she bit you! What did you expect me to do, Jesse?" Shalimar fumed, pacing next to the psionic's bed. "Ask nicely?"

Brennan, towelling himself off, replied, "Well slamming her head-first into a concrete wall probably wasn't the best idea. I would have shocked her, but she threw that glass of water all over me," he apologized.

"Don't worry about it, Brennan," Jesse replied "What happened, Shalimar? From the beginning," he added.

"She asked me if there had been any change in Adam's condition, then she touched his hand," Shalimar began. "She spaced out like she was using her powers and a minute or two later Adam's heart rate skyrocketed and she was squeezing his hand hard. I was going give Adam something to calm his heart, but she grabbed my wrist and told me that if I tried it again she would kill Adam. I yelled for Brennan, I could hear him at the door, and when he tried to get her away from Adam, she let go of my hand, threw the glass of water at him and told him…" Shalimar trailed off, still unable to comprehend the changes that had come over a friend she thought she could trust with her life.

"She told me 'Stay out of things that don't concern you, childish brat,' like I had poked around in something personal…" Brennan trailed off, gawking at Emma who looked so peaceful in her unconscious state. She didn't seem capable of the violence they had just witnessed.

"So I hit the panic button, you phased through the wall, and when you touched her, she turned and bit you!" Shalimar exclaimed. "When you told me to subdue her, I did it the fastest way possible: I threw her into the wall. It seemed like a good idea at the time!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms into the air helplessly.

Jesse sighed. "I suppose… It did work well, at the time. But you didn't think of the after-effects." he concluded. "But what happens if we can't get her to tell us what happened. And you know that head injuries can affect a psionic badly… you thought it was bad when she was biting? Wait until she starts using her powers on us because she's disoriented."

"Well, Jesse, you're our acting leader. What should we do with her?" Brennan asked with the utmost seriousness.

Jesse blinked a few times. One of the most level-headed people he knew had just gone completely psychotic on her best friends. "I don't know," he stated simply. "We could lock her in her room," he suggested.

Brennan rolled his eyes and groaned. "She's a psionic. She doesn't need to leave her room to hurt us, or she could just trick us into letting her out," he reminded Jesse.

Shalimar chuckled. "That would be like locking _you_ in a room, Jesse. Utterly pointless! No, we need a way to keep her from using her powers. She has been fine until she uses her abilities. There's no reason to believe that Emma is completely insane… she's just not in control," Shalimar guessed. If it was just control issues, then she knew how Emma felt. "We could tranquilize her?" When her feral side got out of control, Adam had given her tranquilizers; she knew from experience that they worked well.

"Pumping her full of drugs with a possible concussion isn't a good idea, in fact it is dangerous," Jesse replied.

Brennan groaned as he realized that there was an option none of them had dared consider yet. Drastic… degrading… but it would be the most effective. "I have an idea that will work, but you won't like it. I was snooping in here once and found something. It scared the shit out of me to find it in a drawer where only Adam should have been able to access it," he trailed off, realizing that he was babbling. He went over to a drawer with an electronic lock and shorted it.

The moment Jesse and Shalimar saw it they agreed: they didn't like it, but it was currently the safest option available to everyone – Emma included. As acting leader it was Jesse's decision to make. Looking at the various haggard faces in the room, he nodded. "Do it," he confirmed, disgusted at himself.

When Emma woke up, she was alone in her quarters. Her head was still killing her. What had happened to make it hurt this bad. Listening, she found that Sanctuary was quiet… _'Too quiet! Why can't I feel anyone either? Where is everyone?"_ she puzzled. Groaning, she sat up. She must have been out a long time if the others had left and taken Adam… unless Adam was better and they were tracking the mutant responsible. It was so rare that she was completely alone; she decided to lie back down.

Before she could, a knock at the door startled her. "Who's there?" she asked. As far as she could sense, there was no one there.

"It's Shalimar. Can I come in?" was the reply. Without waiting for Emma to answer, she opened the door and stepped inside.

Emma's eyes were wide with panic. "I… I can't sense you! What happened to me Shalimar, why does my head hurt?" Emma groaned and rubbed a sore spot on the back of her neck. Much to her surprise, she instead rubbed a large cool device. "What did you people do to me!" she shrieked, backing into the wall in terror. "Or tell me that Sanctuary was raided by GSA and they were good enough to let me sleep in my own bed… Please don't tell me…" she was terrified without her powers; they provided some safety for her. It was disorienting not to know if her friend felt bad about doing this to her, to not know who was around her.

"Emma, I can explain! You need to relax, please!" she begged the terrified psionic. "You were rampaging. You almost broke all of the bones in Adam's hand; you downed Brennan in seconds, bit Jesse so hard you drew blood… he phased out so that you wouldn't take out a chunk of flesh. You were out of control, Emma," she explained.

"So you put a Sub-dermal Governor on me? I expect that from the GSA, not from my own friends. That's what it took to take me down?" she hissed.

Shalimar sighed. "No, would you believe it actually to me ramming your head into a steel wall? I came to bring some pain relievers. Do you want Advil or Tylenol?" Shalimar offered, holding out a factory-sealed bottle of each. She had a hunch that Emma would be a little paranoid, unable to sense people's intentions.

"Advil, please. I'll take off the seal myself," she told Shalimar. "So how long do I have to wear this thing?" she asked, taking two pills. It was disconcerting not to have Shalimar's emotions known to her.

"How about we go down to the medical bay and discuss that with everyone. At this point we don't even know what's wrong with you," Shalimar replied. "Are you up for a walk?"

Emma nodded, but one question nagged at her. "How is Adam?" Now that she had seen the inside of Adam's mental prison, she knew that Adam's consciousness was still fighting.

Shalimar sighed. "He is getting worse than before. Now his heart races every so often. We're afraid his heart will fail if this keeps up," she divulged, being brutally honest.

When they walked into the room, the conversation between Jesse and Brennan stopped. "Hi, Emma. Did you sleep well?" Jesse asked cautiously. It was almost as if the psionic had shrunk since the Governor was put on her. It changed her somehow, making her less confident.

She nodded, eyes fixed on the bandage around Jesse's forearm. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… At least, I don't remember meaning to…" she trailed off as tears threatened to fall.

"Have a seat Emma," Jesse told her in a no-nonsense tone. Emma sat immediately, and the other three pulled up chairs. "We need to talk about what happened. Shalimar, Brennan and I know what physically happened, but you don't recall it. So, we need to know what was going on up _here_," he explained, tapping her forehead.

'_They're interrogating me? They're probably mad a me. I must be a liability to the team!'_ she thought in a panic. "What do you mean?" she asked carefully. "I'm not crazy!" she exclaimed. She scratched at the back of her neck, at the edges of the Governor. _'Maybe I could pull it out?'_ she pondered.

Shalimar put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "We don't think you're crazy, Emma. You weren't in touch with the physical world, I could tell. You were trying to tell me something about Adam before you passed out. Do you remember that?" she asked.

Emma nodded, looking at the floor. "Adam is being tortured in his mind. Whoever is doing it is making relive his worst experiences. I saw part of one when I was in his mind, it was like I touched his hand and got sucked in," she explained briefly. "Next thing I knew, I was in restraints on a bed."

"Well, what did you see in Adam's head? What was he reliving?" Brennan asked, looking expectantly at her.

Emma looked at them warily. "I don't know. All Adam told me that it was 1991 and we were in Genomex. He was watching his younger self about to do something to Eckhart. Adam was yelling at me not to watch, and then that voice came, pushing me out of Adam's mind." That was all she dared tell them; Adam had, after all, asked her to be discrete.

The three looked at each other, as if not trusting Emma's story. "What do you suggest we do with you until we can find out why you keep having memory lapses and attacking us?" Brennan asked.

Emma didn't like the sound of this conversation. "You don't think you can trust me, even with a Governor?" she asked incredulously. Jesse and Shalimar at least had the decency to look ashamed, but Brennan just nodded. "Then you should do whatever you think would work best. In fact, let's keep this damn plug in my head, but just in case it doesn't work you should sedate me and lock me in my room," she told them with mock seriousness. "Shackles, perhaps, and a steel wall for Shalimar to ram my head against just in case you don't feel safe with all of those other security measures," she continued. Realizing that she was ranting Emma sighed. "You three just take care of Adam. I'm sure I can find something to do in my room. Catch up on my reading, or something like that," she offered.

Jesse stood up. "I'm sorry about the Governor, Emma. We just couldn't risk you harming anyone, even yourself. If Adam was awake, he would probably have a better solution for you, but…" he trailed off.

For some reason, Emma felt calmer than she had in ages. "You'll have a hard time getting through to Adam without me. But, if this is what the best option is, I'll have to bear with it for now," she agreed.

If anyone noticed Emma's sudden change they likely assumed she had realized that she was dangerous. "Do you want me to walk you back?" Shalimar offered.

Emma shook her head. "You should stay with Adam. I know my way back to my room," she said, subdued. She walked out without looking back. _'If Adam is going to have any chance of beating this he will need my help. And I can't help if I don't know what the incident is,'_ she told herself.

She locked the door behind her and started to prepare herself. There was only one person who would have the answers she needed. She quickly changed into a conservative black suit, low pumps, and pulled her hair into a slick bun. She went into her drawer and pulled out a standard issue GSA sidearm and a falsified security badge. From that moment until she gave up the ruse she would be Karen Anderson. _'At least this Governor makes me look credible,'_ she mused. As a final step she pulled off her locator ring and put it on her pillow.

Grabbing the book and photo she had borrowed from Adam's room, Emma went to the garage and borrowed one of the cars. As she drove down the highway towards Genomex, she shook her head and groaned. "I can't believe I'm doing this," she muttered to herself.

Mason Eckhart stood with his back to his office door looking down at Podding Operations, waiting for the arrival of one of his Agents who claimed she had proof of where Adam Kane was in hiding. The door slid open and he listened to the sound of the woman's heels to enter the room. "You must excuse me, but I do not recall meeting you, Ms. Anderson," he noted in a polite but chilling tone.

"No, you haven't," a familiar female voice agreed, moving closer to him. "She doesn't exist," the voice added. Eckhart scowled as he felt the tip of a gun point into his back.

"Ah, now I recognize your voice, Ms. DeLauro. This isn't Adam's usual tactic," he noted. "And what, pray tell, brings you to here?" he asked.

"Turn around, Eckhart, very slowly," she calmly stated. Eckhart complied and noted with interest that she adjusted her aim to over his heart. "I have questions, and I know you have most of the answers I need. You'll either cooperate, or I will make you feel very unpleasant," she threatened.

"Is that so, Ms. DeLauro?" he asked in an arrogant tone. "Tell me: do you really think that you could shoot me before I could summon assistance?" he asked calmly putting his gloved hands into his pockets. He could see the gun shaking in her hand.

She steadied herself, trying to push away the panicked sensation in the pit of her stomach. _'I don't like this… I can't tell if he's being serious or if he's bluffing!'_ she worried. "At this range, even if you had ten guards burst through that door, I could still kill you before they could fire a shot," she assured him. Sudden, blinding pain shot through her, and she sank down to her knees in pain.

Eckhart pulled his hands back out of his pocket and showed the young psionic the small controller in his hand. "Did you really think I would let a mutant into my personal office without insurance?" He had created a master controller for the Governors, instead of trying to keep track of the multitude of controllers otherwise required. No mutant was allowed to enter this office without a Governor implanted.

Emma stood up and shook her head, trying to clear away the pain. She hadn't been expecting him to be able to control her Governor; it wasn't one from the GSA. "I still need answers," she told him coolly. "Sit down," she ordered, gesturing to the chair at his desk. _'This place is so… bare,'_ she noted. There was nothing on the desk, no shelves, nothing that could gather any dust or germs.

"I am curious, Ms. DeLauro, as to why Adam has given you a Governor," he mentioned casually, moving to sit behind his desk. "Are you troubled by it? I am told that it is excruciating for a telempathic psionic to be so isolated. Having only your own thoughts and feelings in your mind is a wish most psionics make throughout their lives."

She glared at him, still pointing the gun towards his chest. "It wasn't Adam who did it," she revealed. "However Adam _is_ the reason I'm here. Why don't I put down this gun, you put that controller down, and we can talk like rational people," she suggested, lowering the gun and putting the book she carried on the table. "Besides," she said with a humourless smile, "I think you will be surprised with what I brought," she assured him. She may not have been able to feel his emotions, but shock was evident on his face as she flipped open to the nude drawing of him, putting the photograph down next to it. "Like I said, I have a few questions," she said.


End file.
